Brill's Texts and Sources in Intellectual History - Böcker

The Quarrel over Swammerdam’s Posthumous Works reconstructs the vicissitudes of Johannes Swammerdam’s Biblia naturae, a pivotal collection of writings in the history of science. Bequeathed to the polymath Melchisédech Thévenot, the manuscripts and drawings of the treatises constituting this collection were instead kept by the editor Hermann Wingendorp after Swammerdam’s death (1680), triggering a quarrel over their publication.By analysing Swammerdam’s scientific legacy and by offering an edition of the correspondence testifying to the efforts towards such publication, this book sheds light on the editorial history and intellectual context of Swammerdam’s Biblia. This reveals not only an intricate plot of authorized and unauthorized attempts to publish it, but also an exchange of scientific texts and instruments in the late seventeenth century.

Recent scholarship on the Anglo-Saxon prognostics has tried to place these texts within the realm of folklore and medicine, inspired largely by studies and editions from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By analysing prognostic material in its manuscript context, this book offers a novel approach to the status and purpose of prognostic texts in the early Middle Ages with particular attention to the Anglo-Saxon tradition. From this perspective, it emerges that prognostication in Anglo-Saxon England was not folkloric but a scholarly pursuit by monks not primarily interested in the medical aspects of prognostication. In addition, this book offers, for the first time, a comprehensive edition of prognostics in Old English and Latin from Anglo-Saxon and early post-Conquest manuscripts.Brill's Texts and Sources in Intellectual History, vol. 3

Exploration, trade and conquest expanded and upset traditional worldviews of early modern Europeans. Christians saw themselves confronted with a largely heathen world. In the wake of Iberian colonization, Jesuits successfully christianized heathen populations overseas. In his De conversione Indorum et gentilium, Johannes Hoornbeeck presents a systematic overview of every aspect of the missionary imperative from a Reformed Protestant perspective. The most attractive part of his book may be the global survey it offers of the various types of heathens, an early example of comparative religion. Of equal interest, however, is his critical approach to mission. Hoornbeeck rejects ecclesiastical hierarchy and top-down imposition of Christianity. In this he is perfectly orthodox, and at the same time startlingly original and a harbinger of modern missions. His practical recommendations offer a flexible framework for missionaries, to fit a wide variety of circumstances.

The Hieroglyphenkunde by Karl Giehlow published in 1915, described variously by critics as “a masterpiece”, “magnificent”, “monumental” and “incomparable”, is here translated into English for the first time. Giehlow’s work with an initial focus on the Hieroglyphica of Horapollo, the manuscript of which was discovered by Giehlow, was a pioneering attempt to introduce the thesis that Egyptian hieroglyphics had a fundamental influence on the Italian literature of allegory and symbolism and beyond that on the evolution of all Renaissance art.The present edition includes the illustrations of Albrecht Dürer from the Pirckheimer translation of the Horapollo from the early fifteenth century.

Winner of the 2018 Josef IJsewijn Prize for Best Book on a Neo-Latin TopicAlthough many humanists, from Petrarch to Fulvio Orsini, had written briefly about library history, the De bibliothecis of Justus Lipsius was the first self-contained monograph on the topic. The De bibliothecis proved to be a seminal achievement, both in redefining the scope of library history and in articulating a vision of a public, secular, research institution for the humanities. It was repeatedly reprinted and translated, plagiarized and epitomized. Through the end of the nineteenth century, scholars turned to it as the ultimate foundation for any discussion of library history. In Ancient Libraries and Renaissance Humanism, Hendrickson presents a critical edition of Lipsius’s work with introductory studies, a Latin text, English translation, and a substantial historical commentary.

In his De peccato originali (1679), Hadriaan Beverland (1650-1716) presented his thesis that sex was the original sin and a vital part of human nature. Building on contemporary insights into the history of the text of the Bible, he criticised the hypocritical attitudes among the religious and social elite of his day concerning the biblical text and sexual morality. The work became notorious in the seventeenth century and led to its author’s banishment. In the eighteenth century, it exerted considerable influence on the way in which many in Europe came to see sexuality.This annotated edition with English translation also includes a comprehensive introduction that includes a contextualization of the De peccato originali and its impact.

In this book, Valérie Cordonier and Tommaso De Robertis provide the first study, along with edition and translation, of Chrysostomus Javelli’s epitome of the Liber de bona fortuna (1531), the famous thirteenth-century Latin compilation of the chapters on fortune taken from Aristotle’s Magna Moralia and Eudemian Ethics. An Italian university professor and a prominent figure in the intellectual landscape of sixteenth-century Europe, Javelli (ca. 1470-ca. 1542) commented on nearly the entirety of Aristotle’s corpus. His epitome of the Liber de bona fortuna, the only known Renaissance reading produced on this work, offers an unparalleled insight into the early modern understanding of fortune, standing out as one of the most comprehensive witnesses to discussions on fate, fortune, and free will in the Western world.

In Crocologia – A Detailed Study of Saffron, the King of Plants, Sally Francis and Maria Teresa Ramandi present the first translation into English of Johann Ferdinand Hertodt’s seminal 1671 work Crocologia, a book uniquely devoted to the medical uses of saffron. Hertodt discusses saffron’s origin, related species, cultivation, selection, properties and lists all its pharmaceutical preparations. Hertodt then journeys through diseases of the human body, presenting saffron-containing formulae for their treatment. The two authors complement the translation with a biography of Hertodt, and detail saffron’s botany, current production, uses, its changing reputation as a drug, and review findings from new medical research. There is a full Glossary, and translation of a contemporary animadversion of Crocologia by Hertodt’s rival, Wenzel Maximilian Ardensbach.

This is a critical edition of Nikola Vitov Gučetić’s (1549–1610) Commentary on the First Book of Aristotle’s ‘Rhetoric’, with an introductory study and supplementary materials. The purpose of the edition is to provide a clear Latin text for scholars and students of the humanities, especially researchers in Renaissance rhetoric and philosophy. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of the history and culture of Dubrovnik.Gučetić’s Commentary gives a precious glimpse into the transformative character of Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the Renaissance, demonstrating the profound influence this ancient text had not only on leading Humanist scholars and renowned Renaissance philosophers, but also on lesser-known thinkers who depended on the art of persuasion in their political and judicial careers.